12 GoodGymers have supported YNC Community Allotment with 2 tasks.
Saturday 14th March 2020
Written by York runner
When there's still allot(ment) of work to be done to help YNC get the community plot sorted. The Saturdays.... team showed up ready to lend a hand. In a weird reversal of roles our usual late runner was early (give Louise a big cheer) and Katie was late (gasp). The latter attempting to locate the GG team through a game of Marco Polo ( WORST GAME EVER, stick to what three words kids).
Upon arrival Leanne, Paul and Louise were already ferrying Team GG its Friday's efforts down to the car to be deposited at the local skip. So Laura and I joined in. But where was Debs????? Had she lost the plot??! Upon our next trip to the car park we found her, turns our Debs had been tasked with skip escort duties and so had been folding manky plastic sheets and playing Tetris with bags of brambles and other debris and transporting them across town.
Next our down to earth runners go stuck into turning over the soil for the plant beds removing weeds and stones as they went. Katie meanwhile took on the shed, removing broken tools (glad to know we're not the only ones!) sweeping out debris and just giving it good ol' tidy up. Next was raking and leveling the paths
" Sounds like a job for a hoe!"- Katie
"Actually you're not meant to call them that" - Leanne
Katie and plot coordinator Charlotte followed this swiftly by pinned down weed membrane in preparation for future bark chip layering.
Having reached a suitable stopping point these salt of the earth runners finished their good deeding for the day and wound our way out of the allotments and home.
Friday 13th March 2020
Written by York runner
YNC (York Nurturing Community) needed a hand clearing an allotment so it could be used for growing vegetables. The previous plot owners seemed to have specialised in growing carpet, plastic, rubbish and brambles.
Amy took on the unenviable task of clearing up a huge pile of mouldy apples (mmm, cider!). John channeled his inner pyromaniac burning everything in sight and we all got stuck into chopping back brambles and lugging rubbish to the front of the plot so the Saturday group can move it on to the tip.
One local resident (circled in yellow I. The photo) got a rude awakening when their home (carpet pile) was shifted, and Nikki managed to put her foot in a puddle of natural cider, but the allotment looked a lot better after a couple of hours than when we started. Still plenty of work to do before it’ll look as neat as some of the neighbouring plots, but it’s well on the way.